Pace is Personal:
How I rerouted my life at 20
When you’re 16, you start to feel how fast life really moves. At 18, you begin to find your own rhythm, testing out independence and learning how to navigate it. But by 20, the pace shifts again. Suddenly, life feels less like a race you’re running with others and more like a deeply personal journey. Pace is personal — in running, in life, in everything.
For me, though, I never really had to decide my own pace until adulthood came knocking. At 16, I had already mapped out a “perfect” future: the high school boyfriend, the acceptance letter to a top university, vision boards charting my life year by year until I was 28. I imagined the Hamptons house, the Upper East Side apartment, and a life that looked flawless on paper.
But life had other plans. The first reroute happened on college move-in day. Suddenly, my world grew bigger — and with it came the realization that maybe my high school relationship wasn’t so perfect after all. I wanted to become my own person. And that meant deleting a few vision boards.
After my first year of university, I felt the pull to stretch my wings even further. I moved to Italy, transferred schools, and changed my major to something that had always quietly lit me up inside: fashion. That choice changed my entire college trajectory. It taught me more about myself — and the world — than I could’ve ever imagined.
Meanwhile, my friends back home were rushing sororities, building new friend groups, and following the “standard” college path. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t compare my life to theirs. But while I wasn’t in the same place, I was discovering something else: the courage to chart my own course. I was learning to create my own pace and run my own race.
The idea for Change of Pace came with yet another shift. Just two weeks before I was supposed to return to Italy, something inside me said: pause. For myself, for my future, I needed to take a gap year. That decision terrified me — but it also opened a door. I realized I wanted to build something during this time, a space to grow, develop, and share not only my story, but the stories of others who are also taking the road less traveled.